chaotic order

The Women in Adi Shankara’s life - a perspective… In the annals of Indian mystical tradition, the name of Adi shankaracharya stands almost unique, resplendent as a beacon light that shines with gleaming intensity among the vast heap of superstitions, beliefs, commentaries and religious faiths, which have found fertile soil in the excruciating heat and other worldly attitude of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Eighth century India was a teeming mess. Centuries of oppressive priestly class misinterpreting philosophic insights of Vedanta; propitiated by a kingly regimen who needed the active support of its priesthood to maintain social order (read as a class distinctions…); thousands of varied sects, only different from each other in verbiage and dialectical nuances; and a growing sense of atheism and iconoclastic undercurrents – almost stultified any progress in thinking and advancement expected out of such a glorious cultural heritage as India had. When religion becomes mechanical and bere

Isidor Isaac Rabi, a nuclear scientist and a Nobel Prize winner for physics in 1934, as a student was sent by his mentor Leo Szilard to talk to Enrico Fermi at his home about the possibility of using nuclear fission to split neutrons. Fermi replied with a caustic “Nuts!!!” it’s a Remote and risky possibility with chances of less than ten percent…” Leo Szilard never forgot Rabi’s quiet reply to this dismissal by the Great Fermi: “Ten percent is not a remote or risky possibility if we may die of it….” Rabi went on to assist in splitting the atom.                                                                                                                    From Leo Szilard’s papers.... “There is hardly anything for me to do in office, I reach my desk at 9 A.M sharp, work on a few bugs, or develop a minuscule part of a code for some time, attend conference calls at regular intervals, make my presence felt with a few perfunctory and reasonably intelligent remarks, take regular bre

There are few arenas around the world, excluding the Manchester arena and O2 Arena (both in England) that can boast of the kind of glory that Madison Square Garden Manhattan possesses. Situated in the heart of Mid-town, the power nerve of New York, this 820,000 square feet facility has hosted some of the iconic personalities, Musical events and festivals of the twentieth century. It is in these hallowed enclosures that the legendary Mohammad Ali lost in fifteen rounds to George foreman - a fight that will be resonate in history as 'one that defined professional boxing, and assured Ali's immortality; it was here that John Lennon, performed to a resounding ovation before he was shot down by a mad man; it was here that Elvis Presley, the youth icon of the flower age, drove his high strung audiences to overwhelming waves of ecstasy in four house full performances; it was here that Michael Jackson celebrated his thirtieth year as a magical artist, when excerpts from his career wer

Chapter 2 Verse 40 of the Bhagavad gita has an interesting sentence: SWALPAMASYA DHARMASYA TRAYATE MAHATO BHAYAAT: Freely translated , I means : " Even a little effort towards inward alignment and integration with ones vocation in life - leads to immense peace, harmony and relief from fear" Now this word Dharma is a very rich, yet a very simple term in religious literature. The Egyptians called it "Maat" , or order, Chinese "Tao", Greek "Logos" - almost every seminal civilizations developed a term that spoke of one's inner disposition or nature. All of them point to an inner harmony of parts within the whole. Modern Psychology also emphasizes the need to accept one's role and position in society, and the less we strive to become somebody else other then what we are; happier and peaceful would we be. Curiously the division into castes or any other hierarchy was not originally based on inequalities, but merely recognizing the natur

Yet another masterly verse from the Geeta - the Song celestial uddhared atmanatmanam natmanam avasadayet atmaiva hy atmano bandhur atmaiva ripur atmanah Freely translated: "One can only understand and uplift oneself through the prism of one's personality. For all that one knows is but oneself, which is both a friend as well as a foe" The seventh chapter, titled "Sankhya yoga" - the origins of Duality, has this rather enigmatic exhortation in its fifth verse. In chapters preceding this, the Master has slowly been churning the intellectual and emotional curiosity of Arjuna; and then, abruptly, in the middle of these important series of verses, he throws the ball back to Students court. His intention in this pithy verse is to say: All this talk of philosophy, morals, ethics are meaningless if one does not begin with the basic question "Who am I?", or put differently "who is aspiring to change whom?”. No matter how much indoctrination is ac

It was on a cold winter evening in 1764, when Edward Gibbon sitting atop the marshes of Capitoline hill; the citadel of Rome , pondered upon the greatness of Roman civilization - its rise, decline and fall; the faint chorus of evening vespers gently floating into his ears from a distant past - that helped him conceive his magnum -opus of six magnificent volumes on Roman history, "The Decline and fall of the Roman empire". The hill itself was the apex of Roman domination between 278 B.C to 468 A D; its pompous kings ruling a majority of the known world from its ornate palaces and gilded thrones; its laws were commandments; its morals, divine injunctions; its commerce, the bloodline of nations; its arts and culture, the standards against which non-Roman's judged themselves - such was the power, munificence and grandeur of Rome- the Capital, and the significance of Capitoline hill - its apogee. As I stood before Capitol building in Washington DC, the epicenter of power,

“Behind the beautiful forevers” by Katherine boo. To write Non-fiction with a flair of fiction is a literary art that few writers possess, and very few books exhibit. I am not talking about historical fiction – a genre that has great many  exponents- which help us relive an era or a life with period prose and reasonable factual accuracy; but rather, to write accurately about current state of affairs as a journalist would; and be able to weave the message into a spectacular story told with great sympathy, lucid prose, deep understanding and a rare insight into the underbelly of India - is something that is quite extraordinary. It is in this context that I rate Katherine Boo’s “Behind the beautiful forever’s” as one of the finest books to be written in modern times about glaring inequalities in contemporary India- its moral putrescence and tragic apathy. The author picks a mundane real-life incident in an urban slum in Mumbai and weaves a frank tale of reality; a happening that otherwis